Twitter’s jail time potential and China’s forbidden sex park

I’m starting off with Twitter as this news story totally gave me pause for thought – a Guatemalan man could face jail time after an ill advised Tweet was deemed to be a threat to the country’s financial stability. I think of Twitter mainly as something throwaway and disposable, a fun way to pass a little time and an easy venue for voicing your frustrations. I never thought of it as a web activity that could so easily provide you with real life trouble and I’m probably slightly more aware of online branding and representation than your average user.

On the other hand, the seriousness with which the Guatemalan leaders took the indiscretion certainly tells us a lot about the power the micro blogging service has the potential to wield. They believed one man’s Tweets could have the power to plunge the country into financial panic – who’d have thought it?

Friday saw me reading about China’s first sex theme park and giggling while wondering how it would go down with the extremely conservative side that remains strong in modern China. Not well at all, it turns out. Today we find out that the park is being dismantled before it even properly opened.

It didn’t look as though it was ever destined to be the classiest affair, and I can understand why people would object but it’s a shame. Li Yinhe, an expert on sexual attitudes at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Guardian China’s attitudes towards sex are still at a low – especially compared to historical dynasties. She said: “I read a report saying in the west about 90% of women have experienced orgasm, but in China the number is only 28%.”

That’s not to say that China’s attitudes aren’t changing though and people are far freer than they have been in recent times, I guess a sex park just might not be quite the way to go about it.

The things you find in the news, honestly the best way to find inspiration for stories. The only problem is when you end up defending your far-fetched sounding tale by whining ‘but it really happened’ to incredulous readers.